These standards make it possible for anyone to publish text, graphics, data driven graphics, and interactive text and graphics coherently on the web, for all kinds of devices, including desktops, notebooks, tablets, phones and televisions.

Web standards are maintained by open communities of experts and stakeholders who discuss, debate, resolve, publish and promote drafts and revisions of each standard.

But the web wasn't always defined like this.

1995

What changed?

October 20, 1997: The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint demanding a $1-million-a-day fine against Microsoft for its alleged violation of a 1995 consent decree. The complaint claims Microsoft acted unlawfully by forcing PC manufacturers to agree to bundle Internet Explorer with their computers before they could license Windows.

Back then, Internet Explorer wasn't very standards-compliant, or secure, or performant, but it was being pre-installed exclusively on more than 95% of the world's personal computers.

With competitor Netscape out of the way, Internet Explorer's market share peaked at an astonishing 95% in 2003.

By 2007, a decade after the DOJ antitrust complaint was filed, Internet Explorer's market share was down to 80% and falling.

What was happening?

Other browsers, including
Opera,
FireFox,
and Webkit,
implemented open web standards over the same period, with sustained, expert, private and open source development.

By 2008, the combined market share of standards-compliant browsers had grown to significant double digits in leading web markets, sparking participation, innovation, standardization, enjoyment, and most of all, enabling the mobile web.

Internet Explorer was being left behind, its market share declining for seven straight years. Hundreds of millions of PC users chose better experiences with other browsers.